As many of you know, John Carey over at the great Sentry Journal has been documenting how brutal floods have devastated the town of Minot, North Dakota. This spring and summer have been pretty rough on a lot of folks, but Minot has really gotten hammered. But there could be a way for us to help out. Let John explain:

I have one last favor to ask in regards to Minot’s flood One of our city parks (Oak Park) was inundated by the flood waters and was destroyed. Coco-Cola is sponsoring an event where you can vote for your favorite park. Coco-Cola will provide a $100,000 grant to the park that receives the most votes.

I’ve never been anywhere near Oak Park, but I am sure it’s my favorite park in America.

Clickie this linkie. All you have to do is type in ”Oak Park” in the map’s search engine and it’ll get you to the voting page. Our friends in Minot could use a win here. It’s easy, it’s free and it’ll provide a nice boost in morale to a great American town.

I found this information on the recovery in Minot and the government's efforts to avoid flooding in the future. I am not sure whether the cause of the massive flooding has been identified as of yet. It does look like both local and federal government officials are trying to figure out how to avoid this type of flooding from happening in the future.

North Dakota Senators Kent Conrad and John Hoeven have drafted a letter to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton asking her to consider re-working the agreement between the United States and Canada and how the two nations manage the Souris River.

Local and state officials hope to improve the way the river is controlled and monitored north of the border. In their letter, Conrad and Hoeven mention that the lack of adequate and timely data about rainfall in Canada only made flood preparation more difficult here. Minot Mayor Curt Zimbelman said closer monitoring of reservoir levels is needed when flood danger is highest, like it was this year.

"Certainly, what we would want to talk to the Canadians, as well as the folks at Lake Darling, about is bringing the level of those dams down lower as we see this water coming. That would be part of what we`d be visiting with the Canadians about, " said Zimbelman during a press conference Friday afternoon.

The river damaged more than 4,000 homes in Minot and now the city is looking at some potential changes along the river to prevent catastrophic flooding again.

But to prevent that flooding, some plans may call for homes and structures to be removed in order to make way for flood control structures.

The State Department of Emergency Services said calling this a "buyout process" is misleading.

"There`s an impression or sometimes an expectation that the government may show up and offer you a check for your home and you can move on with your life. That`s not the case," said department spokesman Ray Morrell.

What will happen takes months. The city must come up with a plan and then that plan must be approved on the state and federal level after being finalized. Minot cannot make any official headway on acquiring property before they secure grant funding to do so. Any homes, structures, or land that the city buys with federal Hazard Mitigation money comes with major strings attached.

"Which means open space requirements in accordance with federal law; it can never be built on again," added Morrell. That includes permanent dikes and levees, which means local government will have to use money separate from Federal Hazard Mitigation funds to buy properties where future levees will stand. The most likely option to fund those acquisitions is a Community Development Block Grant, like the city of Grand Forks did after flooding in 1997.Here are a couple of videos I found on the net.